


For All Intents And Purposes

by ggggnashville



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Mentions, Happy Ending, M/M, Virgin Sherlock, slight angst, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5902837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ggggnashville/pseuds/ggggnashville
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s only an hour later when John hears his phone buzz.</p><p><i>I’m going to kiss you when I get home.  Let me know now if that isn’t okay. SH</i> </p><p> </p><p>John smiles, then types out his reply. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>Absolutely more than okay.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	For All Intents And Purposes

“Intimacy is the art of licking wounds. And it’s taken me years to let anyone kiss me when my lips were chapped.”  
\- Sierra Demulder 

 

It had been a quiet and eventless day for all intents and purposes.  
John had typed up their latest case. Sherlock had fumbled around with a blowtorch for most of the day, a bit of his left eyebrow singed off in the process. 

They hadn’t spoken much, didn’t need to. John had wordlessly placed mugs of tea into Sherlock’s hands and Sherlock had spewed nonsense that was not entirely understood every couple of hours, and John would simply nod in response. 

It had been nice. 

They were almost completely back to where they were before everything had gone to hell.

Mary has been gone five months. 

 

“Have you eaten at all today?” John asks from the sofa, closing his laptop.  
“I seem to recall toast this morning,” Sherlock replies, not bothering to glance up from his microscope.  
“Right, well, I’m doing carryout. How’s Chinese?”

Sherlock makes a noncommittal humming noise and so John places the order.  
Sherlock wraps his robe around himself and huffs off to his bedroom. John shakes his head and makes milky tea while he waits. 

When the food finally arrives John turns on crap telly, takeout box on his lap. Sherlock sits down next to him with his order, probably eating mostly to humor John. John can also tell that Sherlock has gone off to his room to have a sneaky cigarette. He’s tried to cover the smell with toothpaste and soap but John can always detect it.  
“You were doing so well Sherlock, almost a whole week,” John says, taking a bite of Lo Mein.  
“It was just the one,” Sherlock replies. 

Sherlock picks at his food, and they both only half watch the game show that’s playing, Sherlock only making a few off hand comments. 

John cleans up, and looks over at Sherlock from the kitchen sink. Sherlock looks anxious, tapping his fingers on the side of the sofa, and John would be concerned, but he’s learned what Sherlock looks like on bad days. On bad days, Sherlock goes quiet and still, looking out and seeing nothing. This is not like that. This isn’t PTSD from his time away, when John couldn’t protect him. This isn’t his depression or his addiction acting up again. This is restless anticipation.  
John sits back down beside Sherlock on the sofa, lets himself sit just a bit closer than he had before.

“You know, I’m always amazed,” John begins, turning his head towards Sherlock, “that after everything, we’re still here. Back here.”  
“I know. It isn’t how I wanted things to work out for you. I’m sorry,” Sherlock says, and suddenly he looks so fucking sad that John immediately knows he has chosen his words incorrectly.  
“No, no that isn’t what I meant…I meant, that I’m thankful to be here. I’m very happy here, Sherlock.”  
John wants to take Sherlock’s hand in his own and kiss the knuckles, but instead he digs his fingers into the fabric of the sofa. 

Sherlock is quiet for a moment. He looks away from John and then tips his head back, letting it rest on the back of the sofa, and blinks rapidly a few times. He takes deep breaths that come out fluttering.  
“All right?” John asks. 

Sherlock swallows hard, then turns his head just slightly, his eyes catching John’s.  
“I’m in love with you,” Sherlock says quietly. His breath shakes, and his hands have made fists, clenching and unclenching. “I didn’t mean to, it just sort of happened. Sorry.”  
“Sher--” John begins, but Sherlock cuts him off.  
“Don’t. Please. Don’t say anything.” His voice is so quiet it is painful. John wants to respond. Wants very much to pull Sherlock to him, to hold him. But if Sherlock wants silence for now, then John will give it. John nods once. He can’t imagine what his face must look like.  
“Just give me right now. Knowing I said it,” Sherlock says. His eyelids flutter again. It’s painful to watch and do nothing. 

Sherlock stands up, doesn’t turn around when he says “Goodnight, John,” and retreats into his bedroom.  
John stares blankly at the telly, still playing. He wills himself not to follow. 

 

//

 

The morning comes, and John is only a little nervous when he goes downstairs. When he enters the kitchen, Sherlock is already there, staring at his tea mug, appearing as though he has been waiting the whole time.  
John clears his throat.

“Ready to talk about it?” John asks as gently as he can. He feels over exposed, and he isn’t even the one to make the confession.  
Sherlock nods.

John sits down next to him, folding his hands on the table.  
“If you mean it,” John says, “I would very much like forever with you.” John clears his throat again and looks at Sherlock for any indication of how he should proceed.  
“I’d very much like to believe you,” Sherlock says. His voice is hardly above a whisper.  
“You should believe me, because it’s always been true, Sherlock. God, I’ve wanted you since I met you. I was unbelievably in love with you before you…before you went away, and against all judgment and reason, I was still in love with you when you came back. Christ, I was in love with you on my wedding day. I don’t think I’ll ever not feel this way,” John says. Once he’s said it, his teeth feel too big for his mouth. He feels frightened. Sherlock’s mouth is hanging open only the slightest bit, all of the features of his face gone slack.  
“How do you expect me to believe that?” Sherlock asks, and his voice catches and cracks, just a bit.  
“Why are you so keen not to?”  
“Because I watched you promise forever to someone else, I was there in case you had forgotten!” Sherlock has turned sharp. His breathing is heavy, and he stares at John truly expecting a reasonable answer.  
“What do you want me to say? I was a coward, Sherlock. I didn’t think that I had another option. I didn’t think anything like that with you was possible.”  
“Even if you do love me, we both know I am simply what is left over from the life you had chosen that has gone completely wrong, which, coincidentally, would never have happened had you never met me. If anything I am a consolation prize after you have lost everything and, how I’d like to believe you John. But that would also mean--” Sherlock cuts himself off, and puts the back of his hand to his mouth.  
“Would also mean what?” John asks.  
“That would also mean I wasted so much time,” Sherlock says. And it’s quiet, not the comfortable quiet of the evening before but something important and life altering hangs in the silence now, and John knows, if he doesn’t say the right thing, he’ll ruin it.  
“You could never be a consolation prize. You aren’t something I deserve in the slightest. None of what happened with Mary and the baby is your fault. The things you have done for me…Sherlock, I love you so much. I don’t know how to make you believe me. But it’s true, whether you believe it or not.”  
“Okay,” Sherlock says. His hair is flattened on one side of his face. “But John, only if you mean it.”  
“I meant all of it, very much.”  
“The forever part, too?” Sherlock asks. He looks coy, resting his long fingers against his left cheekbone.  
“Absolutely.”  
“Okay,” Sherlock repeats. Then, slowly, Sherlock takes a hand and places it over both of John’s, folded together on the table. It’s a gentle touch, but it’s warm and steady. 

John takes Sherlock’s hand and presses his mouth to the knuckles. Sherlock intakes the smallest breath and John smiles.  
“I won’t know what I’m doing,” Sherlock says quickly and quietly. “I’ve never…had anyone like this. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”  
“Nobody does.”

 

//

 

Over the next two days, Sherlock allows John more than John ever thought he would get. John holds his hand inside of cabs and at Bart’s, causing Molly to give a surprised look but to not say anything. John kisses Sherlock’s forehead before heading to bed, and tells him he loves him while doing so. 

John wants to do everything with Sherlock, but he doesn’t want to push him. Doesn’t want to scare him away, or go too quickly. He would have waited the full two years, and much longer, if he’d known at all that Sherlock was alive in the first place. 

On the third day, Sherlock bundles himself up in his coat and scarf, and turns to John just before heading out the door.  
“I’ll be back shortly.”  
The way he says it, how he doesn’t look at John when he says it, tells John not to question. John simply nods and looks back towards his laptop. 

It’s only an hour later when John hears his phone buzz.

 _I’m going to kiss you when I get home. Let me know now if that isn’t okay. SH_

 

John smiles, then types out his reply. 

_Absolutely more than okay._

John can’t help but feel giddy as he hits send. He thinks of all the times he’s wanted to kiss Sherlock and been unable to. He tries not to work himself up too much, and in order to distract himself from his own impatience he goes into the kitchen and puts the kettle on. 

 

John hears Sherlock coming up the stairs before he sees him. Sherlock takes off and hangs up his coat in a painfully slow manner.  
“And where did you run off to?” John asks, sitting down in a kitchen chair.  
“Morgue,” Sherlock replies, then throws a plastic bag of thumbs into the middle of the table.  
“Those aren’t staying there, put them in the crisper,” John says, not once tearing his eyes away from Sherlock.  
“Later,” Sherlock says. His face has changed, it’s darker now. John licks his lips and smiles softly up at him.  
Sherlock places one hand on the kitchen table and lets the other wrap around John’s neck. John places a hand on Sherlock’s waist and Sherlock bends forward, letting their lips finally meet. 

It lasts all of five seconds before Sherlock pulls away to push his nose into John’s and sigh shakily.  
“All right?”  
“Fine, it’s just…you.”  
John chuckles a bit.  
“C’mere,” John says, and kisses Sherlock again, just as the kettle whistles. 

 

//

 

When John places a hand on Sherlock’s knee, and Sherlock wraps their fingers together as the telly continues to play, John can’t help but think of how this is a small miracle. Loving Sherlock has never been easy, but instead had always been something fragile, intense, and never ending.  
Sherlock has almost been taken from him more times than John can know for sure. Between Sherlock’s initial faked death, Mary shooting him in the chest, almost flying away to his death in Eastern Europe, and his intense drug addictions, Sherlock being a part of John’s world has always been fleeting. John recalls sleepless nights waiting while Sherlock sweat out cocaine, John pushing Sherlock’s curls out of his eyes and pressing a damp cloth to his face. John asking “Why?” and Sherlock never replying, only closing his eyes. Mycroft had asked John to look after his little brother, but he hadn’t needed to ask at all.  
Mary had nearly killed them both. 

“You’re thinking too loudly, what is it?” Sherlock asks, his thumb tracing circles on John’s palm.  
“Nothing, just this,” John replies, giving Sherlock’s hand a squeeze. 

It’s been four days like this, Sherlock coming to sit down next to him on the sofa, tucking his toes underneath John’s thigh, curling his hands around John’s own. It’s this simplicity, Sherlock’s most innocent desires, the lightest touches. 

It’s late, and John yawns. He brings Sherlock’s hand to his mouth and kisses his knuckles lightly.  
“I’m off to bed,” John says. “You can come up if you like.”  
They haven’t shared a bed yet, and Sherlock knows that John means this in any and all ways possible. John would love to simply share the space with Sherlock, wrap an arm around him as he slept. He’d also do anything else Sherlock might have wanted.  
“I’m not tired,” Sherlock says. John smiles at him, then kisses his forehead.  
“Okay. Goodnight,” John says, standing to go.

For a moment, Sherlock wraps a hand around the back of John’s thigh, and squeezes. Sherlock smiles up at John from the sofa, and he looks so content that John can hardly breathe.  
“Goodnight, John,” Sherlock says, and then takes his hand away.

John turns toward the stairs and heads to bed. 

 

//

 

It’s only been about an hour when John is about to turn off the light and looks up to see Sherlock standing against the door frame.  
“Is it still alright if I come in?” Sherlock asks. John sets his book down and nods.  
“Of course.”

John scoots over just a fraction to his left and holds up his bed sheets for Sherlock to crawl inside. 

Sherlock crosses the room tentatively on bare feet, and climbs into bed with John.  
“It’s warm, you’re warm,” Sherlock says, and immediately sticks his face into John’s chest.  
“Good,” John replies as he begins to rub small circles against Sherlock’s back. Sherlock’s cotton shirt is soft, and Sherlock smells wonderful.  
“Thought you weren’t tired.”  
“I’m not ready to sleep,” Sherlock says softly.  
Sherlock is clutching fistfuls of John’s shirt and John can feel against his chest, just barely, the shaking of Sherlock’s shoulders.  
John can tell there’s been a shift.  
“Sherlock, what is it?” John asks, putting his hands in Sherlock’s curls, coaxing him out so he can look at his face. 

Sherlock is crying against John, softly, trying to be quiet, and it’s terrible because he doesn’t _need_ to be quiet. 

“I don’t know. I’m so tired. I missed you for a long time. Sometimes I think it isn’t over and I miss you still. I miss you right now,” Sherlock says, barely audible. 

John has never seen him quite like this, Sherlock openly letting himself be seen in such a raw manner, with a nose red from crying and shaky breath. 

“It doesn’t need to be any one thing though, does it?” John says. He cups Sherlock’s face in his hands and brushes his thumbs over the tears. “I’m right here, and you’re here with me.”

“I can’t lose you again,” Sherlock says. He looks so sad that John can’t help but kiss his mouth.  
“I love you more than anything. I’m not going anywhere,” John says, and suddenly Sherlock is kissing him again, hard, Sherlock’s hands in John’s hair. Sherlock has never been this demanding before, this desperate. 

John responds in full, letting his tongue brush Sherlock’s bottom lip.  
“Can I touch you?” Sherlock asks softly against John’s mouth. John can feel his heart hammering as he nods his head.  
“Yes, whatever you want.”  
Sherlock brings a hand down away from John’s face and hesitantly lets it drop down John’s t-shirt, and then under, touching John’s bare stomach. It continues, his hand snaking up John’s chest, brushing his hand over John’s chest until his hand is directly over John’s hammering heart. Sherlock leaves his hand there and rubs his nose into John’s.  
“I love you,” Sherlock whispers. John kisses him in reply. 

Sherlock’s hand is insistent, and it begins to pull at John’s shirt until John gets the idea. 

John tugs his shirt off and lets Sherlock’s hand continue to wander. It finds John’s scar on his shoulder, and traces patterns inside of the raised skin. Sherlock’s mouth comes down onto the scar suddenly and John can’t help but gasp.  
Sherlock’s mouth goes up to John’s neck and then to his collar bone. John’s breath shakes but he feels amazing. 

John lets his hand dip under Sherlock’s shirt, and as his hand travels up Sherlock’s bare back he feels Sherlock’s own scars on his fingertips: the scars he knew were there but has never seen. It makes him ache, knowing how they got there. 

Sherlock allows his shirt to be taken off and rolls onto his back. 

“Is this okay?” John asks.  
“Yes. I’ve, I’ve never…” Sherlock trails off but John understands and lets a tiny _oh_ escape.  
“Are you sure?” John says, not wanting anything but Sherlock to be happy, Sherlock to feel safe.  
“Yes, please,” Sherlock replies and that’s all John needs. He dips down to meet Sherlock’s mouth again.

They go slow with each other. Sherlock arches under John’s hands, under his mouth. John revels in the small noises Sherlock makes until he comes with John’s name in his mouth. Sherlock moves down John’s body carefully and John fists Sherlock’s curls, then finally is able to catch his breath. 

//

 

John opens his eyes, and sees that is 4:16 am. He turns over and sees Sherlock looking at him, half asleep but alert enough.  
“I really did think you were going to die,” Sherlock says. 

His hand reaches down to John’s right side, below his ribcage. He touches the other, newer scar that he had not dared to acknowledge earlier, and John knows exactly why. Sherlock had not wanted Mary to be brought into it. The same reason why John hadn’t traced the scars across Sherlock’s back. 

“I didn’t, though. I’m here.”  
“She shot you and I was too slow.” Sherlock fingers the scar on John’s belly, and then brings it back up to John’s face. “I wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t.”  
“Don’t talk like that,” John says. “Please.”  
He kisses Sherlock, and knows he isn’t exaggerating. The thought hurts.  
“I love you, John.” He says it louder this time, like he isn’t afraid of the words anymore.  
“I love you too.” John runs his hands through Sherlock’s hair and kisses his jaw. His head spins with the reality of it, that he is here, with Sherlock, in this way, after years of thinking it was a lost cause. It isn’t every day that the love of your life returns from the dead. And Sherlock has done it multiple times.  
“Go back to sleep,” John tells Sherlock. 

Sherlock curls his body into John’s, and pushes his face into John’s neck. 

They go back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> i just wanted to write something soft and innocent
> 
> ps i now do commissions inquire @ loubloomsgirlfriend.tumblr.com


End file.
